Search - Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky, Christopher Seaman, Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra :: Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1; Francesca da Rimini

A competition winner with more than techinque

Larry VanDeSande | Mason, Michigan United States | 11/15/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Olga Kern won the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2001, the prize named after the wunderkind that took the world by storm when he performed the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 in the USSR in the late 1950s. A Russian trained there and in Italy, Kern shows in this recording she has more than technique -- she understands the Tchaikovsky canon, both its unsubtleties and its relative subtleties.



You won't find much in this rendition of the Piano Concerto 1 that mimics the Horowitz tradition of blazing virtuosity uninterrupted by repose or poetic notions. Kern reads the score and translates it musically and poetically while practicing virtuosity and pounding the keyboard when appropriate. She is hardly an ingenue but far from a grizzled veteran in her approach to this warhorse, which has turned more than one great pianist into a raving maniac.



While Kern's performance in multi-dimensional and something to remember, the support from the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and Christopher Seamon is appropriate but not very memorable. They play the notes right and support the soloist well without stepping out of the shadow cast on a second-tier orchestra.



This becomes all the more apparent in the filler to this CD, Tchaikovsky's hyper-romantic "Francesca da Rimini". The orchestra plays it very well, they are recorded in an exceptional wide-ranging and truthful acoustic, and Seamon leads an impassioned performance in keeping with the nature of the music.



Unfortunately, for all the credits the one large debit is you are always aware this is the Rochester and not Berlin or Vienna philharmonic. For everything this CD has going for it there is no sugar coating the fact that this is not one of the world's great orchestras. And with performances of both works on this CD available by the world's great orchestras and conductors, it tends to work against the efficacy of this issue.



What annoys me beyond everything, however, are the hyperbolic notes included here about the conductor. They go on about "Maestro Seamon" this and Maestro Seamon that, as if to say he is among the handful of most accomplished conductors. A reference in the notes actually says he has led the Rochester forces to become one of the great romantic orchestras.



Take away the persuasive pianism of Ms. Kern and this is no more than an average CD in a crowded marketplace that probably cannot compete against the big boys in either work. Add Ms. Kern's luminescent performance and this is a memorable CD that may speak to you in a way the piano concerto never has."

Exceptional pianism with indifferent orchestral support

L. C. Gasper | 07/31/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Except as to one point, I'll second Mr VanDeSande's appraisal of this recording, and offer further support of it by what I think is a relevant comparison with another recording.



I have in my collection a copy of the Tchaikovsky first piano concerto performed by Barry Douglas, a recording made just a month after he won the gold medal at the Tchaikovsky competition in 1986, and a year after he had won the bronze medal at the Van Cliburn. That recording was made with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leonard Slatkin. The young Douglas gave a very competent virtuoso performance and the London Symphony Orchestra paired with him superbly, even though Leonard Slatkin is not particularly celebrated as an interpreter of Tchaikovsky.



Olga Kern was 17 when she made this recording. She was only a child, yet her reading, while displaying an at least equal virtuosity, has much more of poetry about it than the Douglas performance made when Mr Douglas was at the comparatively advanced age of 26. Barry Douglas, Leonard Slatkin, and the London SO all played at a similarly high level, to produce a stunningly competent Tchaikovsky first. In contrast, Ms Kern is much more than stunningly competent. Musically, she plays well above Mr Douglas to produce memorable piano performance in partnership with a third-tier American orchestra and conductor. (This is where I can't quite agree with Mr VanDeSande; the Rochester is not in the same rank as the Seattle, for example, and Maestro Seaman has nothing on Seattle's Gerard Schwarz.)



As Mr VanDeSande says, the orchestra gets the notes right, but I found myself in a sense always holding my breath to see if they were going to make it through the next bar without flubbing something. I'm not competent to be sure of it, but I think the engineering was deficient. Either a few of the microphones were not placed right, or someone didn't know how to work the volume controls.



I confess that I bought this recording not from Amazon but from, so to speak, the hand of the artist herself (she autographed it for me). I bought it at the intermission in a Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra concert that included Ms Kern performing Rachmaninoff's first. As with the Tchaikovsky, she brought poetry to the Rachmaninoff concerto, a piece which for good reason is not performed so often as the other three Rachmaninoff piano concerti. (It was the first time it had been performed in Fort Worth.) But with the poetry she also displayed a power which is essential to playing Rachmaninoff's concerti; he so often requires the pianist to compete to be heard with the orchestra. Most remarkably, and pertinent to this review, Ms Kern gave two encores the second of which was the C sharp minor Prelude. Please don't go away - hear me out. In the hands of another performer that would have been a real let-down. But again Ms Kern invested the Prelude with an expressiveness that lifted it and genuinely made it lyrical. I would be delighted to hear it again. For a piece that even the composer was embarrassed to hear so often as he did, that signals a performance almost beyond the music itself.



Olga Kern's exceptional piano playing, and only that, is worth the price of the disc. I hope she will record the Tchaikovsky first piano concerto again, but with a superior orchestra to match her artistry."

5+ stars for her artistry alone

Brother John | The O.C. | 09/09/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This performance does remind me of Cliburn's classic recording. That's how good it is. Certainly amongst the best. She has incredible musical and artistic intelligence and it shows from beginning to end.

No, the orchestra is not the NYPO, but sounds better than on the Cliburn recording. The production is acceptable is just a tad dry. I must confess that I remastered the disc to a copy I did myself and "enhanced" the sound only fractionally but it did make an improvement.

(I have a "live" broadcast of her doing the Rach 3rd. I don't know if there's any commercial version of her playing it but her playing never disappoints!!)"